


Navigating Rapids

by Anonymous



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Childbirth, Fluff, Graphic-ish, M/M, Mpreg, SWEET JESUS WHAT HAVE I DONE, Swearing, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:28:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Kink Meme prompts: 'Maybe who ever is pregnant goes in to labor at the least opertune moment and the father is stuck up river without a paddle. Can be funny, fluffy or silly.' and 'Javert gives birth to his first child. I want to see the first few minutes of his/her life. saccharine as humanly possible.'</p>
<p>I took the 'stuck up river' bit quite literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Navigating Rapids

The air rumpled audibly as Javert gave the duvet another shake, the fabric frowned at being disturbed for the fifth time in as many minutes, before he unfurled it wide over the mattress. He stooped a little, his body curved awkward and cumbersome, lined the blanket flush to the bed frame with a meticulous eye. Satisfied, he plucked a pillow and plumped it with several thumps, matched with those striking within his abdomen. 

“Easy!” he growled as a foot struck against his ribs with startling force.

Javert crowned the head of the bed with the pillows and took a moment to regain his breath. He sat on the bed, allowed the thick mattress to take his full weight, and pressed a splayed hand to the dull ache that throbbed low in his back. 

“Ah,” Jean stalked towards Javert from across the corridor. “So this is what you’ve been doing.” Valjean nodded to the bed, pristinely presented. “Cosette wouldn’t have minded if you had left it.”

“It was bothering me.” Javert answered as his free hand smoothed a crease that fanned from beneath his thigh. “I couldn’t leave it unmade.” 

“That’s not all that’s bothering you, it seems.” Jean sat beside his partner and touched a hand to the very spot Javert was trying to soothe. “Do you feel up to it – travelling?”

“You do worry, Jean.” Javert couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “A little tiredness and aching is to be expected. Besides,” Javert burrowed closer to his partner, tucked his head between the column of Jean’s neck and plateau of his shoulder, “I _want_ to be home – just _us_.”

Jean pulled a touch away and looked directly into Javert’s blue eyes, hinted with tiredness, “You’ve not enjoyed your time here?”

Jean felt Javert’s shoulders tighten: “You know that’s not what I meant. Cosette has been nothing but attentive, and Marius is…”

Jean cocked his head at the silence.

“ _Tolerable_.” Javert finally blurted, earning a chuckle from Jean.

“That’s an improvement from your last assessment of his character.” 

“I aim to be fair.” Javert smirked as Jean drummed his fingers against Javert’s aching muscles while Javert glided his hand over the stretch of his stomach. “It’s close, Jean” Javert turned serious, “Take me home.”

Jean touched his thumb and forefinger to Javert’s chin, caught the scrub of his sideburns, tilted his head back enough to look at him and whispered against Javert’s thin lips, “Of course, Mon Coeur.” 

*

Javert, aching yet, ambled into the crowded hallway. Jean was fixing his cravat as their daughter engaged herself with buttoning his powder-grey waistcoat. Their modest trunk rich with its modest set of belongings, friended with a small wicker hamper of food and water, lay patiently by the half-open door leading onto a carpet of wind-bashed leaves. 

“You will write, Papa?” Cosette asked, draping her father’s frockcoat over his arm, “When you have news.”

Jean hugged his daughter close, “Of course, Ma Petite.” He answered with a kiss brushed across her fair hair.

“Oh.” Cosette groused, playfully, “I’m not so petite anymore.” On spotting Javert she shirked from Jean’s hold and came up beside him, clasped his hand firmly in her own dainty ones and smiled warmly; “Further, you shall soon have another ‘Petite’ to call your own.” Javert couldn’t help jerking reflexively when Cosette laid a delicate palm and elegant fingers to the arc of his belly. 

“Try here.” Javert instructed as he relaxed again and took Cosette’s hand to settle it higher, where the quicks were fiercest. 

“Goodness!”

Jean laughed near uproariously, lines of delight creased deep in his expression, when Cosette flinched away momentarily before replacing her hand, her sweet red mouth rounded in awe.

“Strong - like Papa.” 

“The weather has improved” Marius stepped into the vestibule, his earthy-hued hair tousled by the breeze. “After that storm-” 

“Marius!” Cosette, eyes bright and smile wide, cut over her husband with eager delight, “Here, you must feel this!”

Marius’ eyes grew large and he felt his jaw slacken; however quick he was, it wasn’t speedy enough to conceal how horrified he felt from the sharp-eyed Inspector. “I’m sure Javert wouldn’t want…”

“I have no objections.” Javert stated as he straightened his aching back, thrusting his belly out a little more, all the while concentrating on keep his baritone sober and supressing a smirk of satisfaction at seeing the boy squirm and shift awkwardly from foot to foot. 

Marius took two timorous steps to his wife and, with a touch that was barely perceptible to Javert, pressed his hand where she had directed. He held it there, waiting, not looking up from the polished wood floor; Cosette slipped an arm around her husband’s waist and laid her head upon his shoulder:

“It’s beautiful, is it not?”

“To think this could be you one day.” Jean’s contemplative voice stirred Marius as much as the sudden jolt against his palm. 

“Oh, Lord!” 

*

The fiacre swayed a monotonous beat as it blurred past screens of shedding trees and rough hedgerows; above, a wash of pastel blue darkened to evening in the far distance.

“Perhaps you should consider giving up on it, Jean.”

Jean was briefly puzzled. “On what?” he angled his head up to his partner sat beside him. 

“Your book.” Javert replied as he idly stroked a hand down his stomach. “You’ve not turned the page these last fifteen minutes at least. If there is little pleasure to be got in one that is meant to be readable, then there is no pleasure to be taken in one that can’t be read. Now, what is it that’s bothering you?”

A smile, coy in nature, dimpled Jean’s mouth; “I shouldn’t be surprised that such a thing would not escape your notice.” Jean clipped the book closed. “I wonder, with Marius earlier – I do hope he wasn’t startled too much.”

“Your hope is in vain, Jean. The boy is as wet and near simpering as they come, even for an Omega.” The carriage jolted awkwardly over the rain-potted road, “Damnable thing!” Javert muttered to himself as the body of the carriage shuddered. He followed it with a hard hiss and impulsively cupped a protective hand over their child. 

“Javert?” 

Javert twisted his body the little he could to adjust their bundled frockcoats that cushioned his sore back: “They make these roads so unpleasant to journey on.”

“Here,” Jean laid his book atop his redundant waistcoat and cravat on the seat beside him. “Let me.” He shifted closer and stretched a dextrous hand behind his lover’s back and circled the pad of his thumb deep into the muscles pulled taut there. “Is that-?”

Jean glanced back up to find Javert had closed his eyes and his head lolled against the plush seat back. 

“You do wonders with your hands, Jean.”

“Always for you, Mon Cher.” 

Jean rested against Javert’s shoulder. “Look at you” he spoke low into Javert’s neck, just above his collar, as his right hand circled and kneaded. Jean brought his left hand across to trail a caress down the swell of Javert’s breast; a kiss pressed to the strong line of Javert’s jaw, “so full”, before that same hand wiped over the curve of Javert’s belly. “Mine.” Jean breathed, his lips hovered over Javert’s own for a moment before he graced his partner with a heated kiss.

Javert’s own hand, a tad bigger and much softer, splayed over Jean’s and Javert responded in kind, matched Jean’s actions with equal fervour as they slipped through several hundred yards of countryside and blackening sky. When they at last separated, breathless, Jean lifted a hand to tenderly tuck back loose strands of Javert’s locks that had slipped free of its silky bond and smiled when Javert briefly nuzzled his seasoned palm.

“You should rest.” The tiredness that had dimmed Javert’s usually blue eyes to grey had not gone unnoticed, “We’ve a few hours yet.”

*

On waking, there were two things that were immediately apparent to Javert: the first was that damnable discomfort in his back had intensified and coiled around his stomach, and the second was that the carriage had halted. He blinked hard, cleared the sleepy daze and focused his eyes in the near blackness of the carriage.

“You would leave us here at this hour?!” He heard Jean’s voice, rough and riled, outside the carriage. “Surely you must know of an alternative route?” 

“Only via the mountains and this is not fit for tha’. As I said, the road’s all gone – washed away by the storm, it were. Wha’ would you ‘ave me do ‘bout tha’?”

Javert shuffled forward in his seat, his body sluggish and cumbersome, concentrated still on the voices outside when an unfamiliar sensation, greater than a kick but yet not entirely pain, caused his brow to scrunch and hooked his breath to a stutter in his throat. “Stop, now” he chided their babe with a serrated voice.

“’Course, the river’s just there. Monsieur may find a boat to…”

The voices drifted quiet. Steeled to move once again, Javert opened the door and gracelessly stepped out of carriage. The sky above glittered clear and the night air was cool and still. It felt good to extend his aching legs, to straighten his sore back, to walk off the tightness that had settled upon his belly. A wet snort commanded his attention and he paused in front of the carriage, stroked a hand over the horse’s sleek mane and down the patch of white that striped its muzzle; it soothed him as he waited for Jean to return. The footsteps came soon enough, accompanied by low voices that swished the dark air and the gravelled road that munched beneath their boots. 

“A boat? To the next town?” Javert’s voice lilted skyward as he cocked his question to Jean’s robust form, nearing from the rear of the carriage. “Your letter to Cosette will make for riveting reading.”

“As I told Monsieur,” the driver grunted as his portly shape lugged vigorously at the travel chest, “the road cannot be passed - the rain near rid of it.” 

“I see.” Javert’s voice clipped tight. 

The silver blur of moonlight was adequate enough for Javert to note Jean’s features tangled in displeasure: “It is pure folly, Javert!” 

“It’s our only means, Jean!” His voice lowered, “Unless your devout prowess can conjure a place of shelter for our convenience. Nor will I risk birthing our child in a field like cattle.” 

“Birthing our child? Javert, do you mean to tell-?” 

“Of course not!” Javert snorted, disparagingly. There was a pause before he held up a hand and relaxed his temper, “I did not mean to alarm you. But,” Javert paused, “I am near term, fatigued and don’t desire to spend the night in a meadow.” 

Jean dropped their frockcoats over the arced roof of the chest. Stood just to the left of Javert, he urged him close and slipped his arms high around Javert’s waist. “I won’t allow that – I’d sooner carry you back to Paris.” 

“Then we will continue our journey as intended, yes? However unconventional the means?” 

Jean acquiesced to Javert’s reasoning with a brush of a kiss. “Here,” Jean bent down and grasped their frockcoats, “You may carry these.” 

Jean, with the bulk that was the trunk gripped in his arms, and Javert with their frockcoats hooked casually over his arm, started off moments later in the direction of the riverbank as the whir of carriage wheels and scrunch of hooves whispered away into the night. They had walked only several yards when Javert felt it again; that strange sensation that sunk into his back and wrapped around him, winding tight. Stopping immediately he nipped down a groan as his body doubled forward a little in recompense and forced him to brace a palm against his strong thigh. 

“Javert?” Jean paused and looked to his partner with concern, “Are you quite well?” 

“It’s nothing, Jean.” His voice gritted, “The day has been long, that is all.” 

Jean set his cargo down and ironed a soothing caress over Javert’s back as he straightened and evened his breathing. “Come, Mon Coeur. We shall be home soon.”

*

The boat was of simple construction, clinker built and basic in comfort. In the ethereal moonlight Javert had stood with his hands spread open over his rigid back and rocked steadily on his heels, his rhythm matched the gentle current as it slopped against the boat, whilst Jean first set down the chest then their jackets and the wicker basket. 

“Here.” Jean had held his hand out to Javert. 

“On the floor.” Javert had taken hold of Jean’s hand. “I will be more comfortable there.” He noted how the silver light caught Jean’s mouth and brow, which had creased in uncertainty. 

And for a while he _was_ comfortable, at least as much as he could be with a near nine month babe weighted low – and he was sure it had shifted lower, too – in his stretched abdomen and strained the muscles in his back. With Jean’s help and several cumbrous movements Javert had seated himself on the floor of the boat, buttressed between the trunk and the slatted wooden seat, and had loosely moulded his coat into a pillow. With one arm curved up and under his head and his other curved down over his stomach Javert focused on the night air, mild and soothing against his warm skin, and each slip and slap of the oar upon the water. 

*

He gathered he must have dozed; it was the pain that brought him around, rather hastily too, and not Jean’s voice informing him they had reached their destination as he would have expected. And now though...now, Javert was anything but comfortable and he could feel _everything_ : his stomach clenched hard, their babe wedged tight in his canal, his cock pressed hard and taut against his wet trousers. His thighs, thick and muscular, splayed apart, his chest burned with each fervent expansion and ragged intake of air.

“But...you said you weren’t…!” The tone of Jean’s voice slid upwards as the oars clattered from his hands.

“I didn’t think it was!" Javert growled brutally - a chilling, feral sound that at once catapulted Jean back into the depths of the Bagne. "Though I hadn't intended you take my opinion as being medically accurate!”

There was near silence for a moment, save for Javert’s intense breathing. Jean shifted onto his knees before his labouring mate – the connecting strips of wood gouged though his clothes and into his skin but his own comfort wasn’t a concern right now – and he hesitantly laid a hand upon the solid jut of Javert's knee. He felt Javert's body slacken as the contraction receded. With his other hand Jean reached up and stroked damp tendrils of hair from Javert’s sweat sheened face.

Javert flicked his head harshly. “Stop petting me like a dog!” 

The bright moonlight seemed to illuminate the cool glare in Javert's eyes and the shadows cast grotesqued the scowl that wrought over his features. Jean retracted his hand as though he had been burnt; he let them drop instead to Javert's cravat and worked on threading the saturated linen free. As he turned his attention to the buttons of Javert's shirt and slipped two of them open he was aware of Javert shifting beneath him; with a sharp wince and a deep breath Javert worked to manoeuvre himself to brace his back and elbows against the seat of the boat and tuck his legs beneath him. He began breathing forcefully again, though more from exertion than pain.

"Easy now, Mon Coeur." Jean caught his arms around Javert in time to help him slide into a squat.

Jean desperately wanted to keep his arm around his partner or cup a hand to his cheek, wanted to whisper in comfort to him, yet he also possessed the good sense not to upset or distress Javert further. Instead, he pulled away and returned to crouch before Javert and settled his hands on his thighs. Through the thin material he could feel Javert tense; he stroked his hands up and down, slowly, as he watched Javert double in on himself. Javert's eyes had shut tight and his brow creased deep as did the lines framing his mouth.

"GOD ABOVE!...this HURTS!"

"Deep breaths, Mon Cher. Don't fight it." Jean's hands slid down Javert's thighs. "Breath out now...that's it."

"You talk as to a child!" Javert snarled, exhaling as he was told; his posture sagged a little as the air flowed from his lungs and the contraction relinquished its grip. He lolled his head back and his features gradually relaxed and his eyes opened. He brought his hands to press over his shirt and his curved stomach and looked down at himself. The tender glint in his eyes hadn't gone unnoticed by Jean, nor did the slight twitch of his hips.

"Make yourself useful and get these damn wet trousers off me - I believe I'll need to push soon!"

Jean's head snapped up at that: "Already! But surely it is too soon – you jest -"

"Jean! You think I would jest at this moment?" Jean could tell by the brittleness of Javert's baritone that another contraction was imminent. Javert sucked in a breath. "It’s rapid labour, Jean - some Omegas are prone to it, such as my mother was.”

"Your mother? That's...how you were born in a jail cell?”

"DAMMIT JEAN! TROUSERS! NOW!"

It was fruitless for Jean to try to stop his hands shaking or his fingers tripping over each other whilst he unhooked the buttons and slid the soaked fabric from Javert's lower half before balling it up and tossing it aside. Jean had surmised correctly and once again sat back on his heels helplessly as Javert succumbed to the pain; Jean begun to moderate his own breathing in attempt to quell his rising panic that this was all happening far too quickly: they should be at home - just him and Javert - waiting out each long hour as Javert paced circles into the carpet or as Jean held him close. But, for it to be like this, in a boat, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a river no less, in a - 

"DAMN! FUCK! AH!...HELL ABOVE!"

Javert thrashed for several moments before he dipped his chin to his chest and sobbed once, hard; his legs ached, he was sure he was being shredded from within, his cock remained hard - painfully so, his lungs felt afire. "I cannot...no more..." his voice scraped raw, like jagged stones, in his throat.

Jean had read enough to know that it was not unusual for a labouring Omega to reach a point of near defeat; he had also read enough to know that it would soon be over. Jean slipped Javert's hand into his own and rubbed his thumb over the pale ridge of knuckles. Jean's voice was as gentle as the breeze that stroked over them: "You're doing well, Javert. So, so well." He kept up the caress and soothing words whilst he dipped his hand into the basket near his feet and pulled out a small metal flask. A little taste himself told him it was full of cool water, as he had hoped.

"Here," he held the rim to Javert's reddened lips, "sip."

Javert swallowed several small mouthfuls, savouring how the liquid relieved the burn in his throat. And when Jean dampened his own cravat and pressed the cool, sodden silk to his sweat and tear stained face, Javert savoured that too...until that now familiar tightening wrenched itself upon him again and thrust the breath from his lungs and their babe lower still with one huge squeeze. 

"CHRIST! I CAN'T..." Javert gripped his thighs near bruisingly, and pressed his chin firmly into his chest. "...NEED TO PUSH!!!"

"What?! No, Javert! Not yet." Jean shuffled closer. He touched a hand to Javert's wet cheek. "Breathe through this one - I have to check you."

Bright moonlight ghosted over them as a veil of cloud pulled away; tension was wrought over every line of Javert's expression as he was overwhelmed with an irresistible urge to bear against the pain and it was quite clear Javert had given into his instincts. Jean fruitlessly rubbed Javert's arm; he could only sit by and watch as Javert's strong form quaked with his efforts for several long moments before he fell back, exhausted and breathless:

"...couldn't...couldn't stop..."

"It’s all right, Mon Cher." Jean squeezed Javert's shoulder tenderly. "Rest for a moment." 

Jean unscrewed the flask again and tipped a little of the water over his hands to rinse them as he prepared to help his mate. Javert barely had a moment of reprieve before he felt it starting over once more and he was bellowing to Jean how _desperately_ he needed to push. Another cloud rolled over and dimmed the moonlight; in the near darkness Jean laid a hand over Javert's hardened belly and slid his other hand down beneath his partner. 

"Go ahead, Javert."

Javert obeyed, doing as his body demanded. Jean stole a glance upwards as the cloud thinned away. He took in every detail of his partner silhouetted in silver before him; his head was tipped downwards into his chest, his chestnut hair with its few streaks of pepper was slicked wet, his eyes were creased closed, his features were knotted strongly in awful pain and concentration. His shirt was stained and his legs were splayed obscenely and now Jean thought he had never seen him look more beautiful than at this moment. His harsh breath rumbled into a wild growl – “FUCK! SHOULD IT HURT THIS MUCH!” – and Jean felt something hard brush against the palm of his hand.

"My god! I can _feel_ it!"

Javert collapsed lax, panting hard. "Not as much as _I_ can!"

As with his labour, his body was quick to help him birth their child: they stayed like that, Javert propped uncomfortably against the few things that would give him purchase and Jean knelt before him giving him comfort and direction with compassion. 

"Nearly there, Javert." Jean reached over to the trunk with his free hand and snatched for his jacket. "Another good push..."

"FUCK!...NEVER...FUCK!...DOING THIS AGAIN!"

*

And then it was over. Their child slipped free into Jean’s ready hands and for the final time Javert sank back, gasping and panting fiercely. He felt a mess, and knew he was too – he ached, stung, throbbed, he was slick with sweat and his shirt was additionally soiled with milk and semen – but he cared none for that right now: Jean had settled their baby, which he had swathed in his jacket, into the crook of Javert’s arm. 

“We have another daughter.” Jean sounded as dazed as Javert looked, though he made sure to brush his lips over Javert’s hair. “I’m so proud of you, Mon Amour.” Jean’s voice was soft and thick as he slipped an arm under Javert and coaxed him to sit fully on the floor of the boat. “She’s truly beautiful.” Jean remarked. “She has your eyes – big and blue – I hope they stay that way.”

“She’s...so small” Javert stammered, awe resonant in his voice; he found himself able to do little more than look on the fragile, helpless thing as he regained his breath. “I’ll hurt her.” 

“You wouldn’t hurt anything of ours, Javert,” Jean chuckled brightly on seeing Javert’s eyes widen in alarm. "Here" he reached across for Javert's jacket and draped it over his partner's bare legs, "Keep warm. I'll get you cleaned up."

To Javert Jean's actions quickly fell to blend with the boat lulling against the current and a bird keeing through the temperate air, when he was distracted by their daughter’s whimpers. “Hush, sweetheart,” Javert cooed as one strong arm curled like a fortress around their child; he employed his other hand in opening his shirt more and shuffled her a little higher to his breast. Jean was right, he wouldn't hurt her - quite the opposite in fact, as he observed each gentle tug for milk; it even provided a welcome distraction when his body spasmed sharply to rid itself of the last remnants of his pregnancy. Relaxing anew he lifted his finger and with a feather of a touch he traced her diminutive, perfect features; her downy hair that would lighten to the colour of his own, the soft tip of her nose, the small curve of her chin. He moved to her hand, no bigger than a Sou, and felt tears warm his eyes as the tiny being of their creation wrapped her fingers around his own digit. 

The stunned haze that had clouded his mind graduated, like the sky that was opening on the first pale swatch of daylight: “Jean – stop fussing and come and see what we have done.” He reached up and caught hold of Jean’s wrist to pull his partner to his side. Jean patted his freshly-swilled hands dry on his trousers as he tucked himself against Javert who, with the most tender of gestures laid their baby in Jean’s waiting arms. A sigh from Javert, soft and near inaudible, didn’t quite bypass Jean’s notice.

“Mon Coeur?” Though Jean didn’t look up, he rested his head against Javert’s shoulder.

“Just...thinking...” The pause was lengthy, enough to begin to set Jean on edge, before Javert’s voice rasped to life again: “I never thought I could feel this...content, this happy.” 

“Oh, Javert”

“No, Jean, I mean it.”

“And did you mean what you said about never doing this again?” Jean spoke low, “Never having another child.” 

“I said that?” 

“Just now...well, shouted it.” 

Javert scoffed a laugh, an action that tormented his tender body. “Lord, I don’t think I can be held to account for what I was saying – it was bloody painful, Jean – but no, I didn’t mean it about never having another. I think, in time, I could be persuaded. Now,” here Javert cupped his hand to their babe’s head, “what are we to call this one?” 

*


End file.
